After enraging the public of Wolverhampton by first damning the city on social media and then scoring a second-half hat-trick for Chelsea in a 6-2 win against Wolves, Noni Madueke celebrated his first senior treble and issued a public apology.
Madueke’s social media post – swiftly deleted – read “this place is shit”, and on Sunday he said: “I just want to apologise to everyone that I might have offended. It is just a human mistake, an accident. It wasn’t meant to be out on my socials like that. I’m sure Wolverhampton is a nice town and I’m sorry.”
He was booed throughout at Molineux but in the second half, over 14 minutes, scored three times, each assisted by Cole Palmer. “He is cold and I am fire, so it mixes well,” Madueke said of Palmer. He also had praise for his new manager, Enzo Maresca, saying: “He’s mad about his approach, the little details, you can see that.”
Maresca in turn hailed Palmer, who played key roles in all six Chelsea goals. “He is a special player, a special guy and a special person,” Maresca said, after his first win as Chelsea manager.
By contrast Mykhailo Mudryk, selected ahead of the new signing Pedro Neto, with Raheem Sterling exiled having been put up for sale, was subbed at half-time, his new manager saying: “He was working very hard off the ball and that was very good. But in terms of on the ball, I expect a bit more quality from Misha.”
Neto came on at half-time and set up Chelsea’s final goal, scored by João Félix, the latest addition to a bloated squad. Maresca, meanwhile, outlined key objectives set by the club’s hierarchy. “They just asked me to improve the players, improve the team, and also in this moment the target is to solve the economic problem in terms of the reason why we need to sell players and do some things.”
The Italian asked for time to deliver success. “You need a process. You can’t suddenly compete with this kind of team. I said many times; the difference between us and Arsenal and City at the moment, City are working with the same manager for eight or nine years and Arsenal are working for five years. Chelsea are working with the same manager for less than two months.”
Gary O’Neil, the Wolves manager, lamented a disastrous second-half defensive display. “We gave Chelsea a lot of help so there is an awful lot I need to fix,” he said.
“It’s been a tough start for us, to play Arsenal and Chelsea. We’ve got a lot of things to sort out and then when we come up against teams that are more closely matched to ourselves we will cause them a lot of problems.”
